Sunday, September 30, 2007

The Presidential Candidates on Climate Change. By Kitty Bennett and Farhana Hossain, The New York Times, September 30, 2007. "A growing environmental awareness among Americans has brought the issue to the forefront of the 2008 presidential campaign. Both Republican and Democratic candidates have been asked to explain their stance on global warming during the debates and on the campaign trail. Most of the Democrats say the United States should lead the global effort to curb greenhouse emissions and advocate federally mandated emission laws. The Republicans, many of whom are unsure about the human role in climate change, tend to emphasize energy independence and efficiency." A listing of each candidate follows, with blurbs under these headings: "STANCE ON GLOBAL WARMING AND AMERICA'S ROLE; IF ELECTED, THEY SAY THEY WOULD...; PAST ACTIONS ON THE ISSUE."

The truth about the climate crisis is an inconvenient one that means we are going to have to change the way we live our lives. Al Gore

. . . unless we advance beyond thinking only in terms of conservation and alternate sources and begin to think in terms of a carbon pie, we will have no chance to stop the rise in atmospheric CO2. Wallace S. Broecker

Saturday, September 29, 2007

Hi OMNI UA,It's a busy, mid-termy time of year, and my first Honors Thesis Thang is due this week, so no OMNI UA meeting. Here's a nice message from the Campus Greens, though.Also, if there's anyone you'd like to bring to campus, it's time for OMNI UA to begin to consider our next semester's budget. Peace!-- Stephen CogerOMNI UA, president

CAMPUS GREENS will present:"Who Killed the Electric Car?"...with special guest, Director, Chris PaineThe screening will be held on TUE, OCT 9th, from 6-8 pm, in the ARKU Ballroom,followed by a Question & Answer session with the film's director.

In 1996, electric cars began to appear on roads in California.They were quiet and fast, produced no exhaust, and ran without gasoline.Ten years later, these futuristic cars were almost entirely gone.

For questions or information, please contact CAMPUS GREENS at greens@uark.edu

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Mayday Message: Save the Earth from Man Induced Climate Change!‏From: RobertMcA1@aol.comSent:Thu 9/27/07 11:24 AMTo: jbennet@uark.eduProtesters Pushing the Envelope. By Kelpie Wilson, Truthout.org, September 26, 2007. "More than 80 heads of state met at the UN on Monday to discuss the launch of post-Kyoto climate negotiations. Although this was the most high-level UN meeting yet held on the global climate emergency, President Bush refused to attend. He did, however, assent to an invitation from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to attend a private dinner afterward... Ironically, who eats and who does not eat is very much what the climate crisis is about. Scientists with the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predict global warming is likely to cut African crop production by half in the next dozen years... On Tuesday, film stars and celebrities from Bollywood and Nollywood (the Nigerian film industry) rallied near the UN with a Mayday Message on behalf of Africans and Asians. They said: 'Please help save us from climate change. We are the ones who have done the least to cause it, but we are suffering from climate change now. If you don't come to our help today, tomorrow it will be all of you'. Bollywood actress Shabana Azmi said, 'There are 854 million hungry people in the world today - 54 million more than when the world leaders pledged to halve hunger 11 years ago.' As global warming saps food production in poor countries around the world, the Millennium Development Goals of halving hunger by 2015 recedes into impossibility. While Bush was eating his dinner with Ban ki-Moon, a half-dozen American climate change activists continued a weeks-long fast to protest American inaction on climate, 'so that others might eat.' The fast began with participation from more than 1,200 people on September 4, the day Congress came back in session... [Climate activists],Ted Glick and others, are doing their best to organize the grassroots revolution. On Thursday, Glick will join a non-violent civil blockade of the second climate meeting this week, President Bush's...'Major Emitters Meeting'... where Bush will try to steer the world away from any mandates or caps on emissions and substitute vague 'aspirations' (voluntary action for legal obligations)... In addition to the civil resistance planned on Thursday, the Climate Emergency Council is holding a rally protesting Bush's 'Major Emitters Meeting' at noon on Friday, September 28 near the State Department building where the meeting is being held. On October 22, peace, justice and climate activists are sponsoring a 'No War No Warming intervention' in Washington to pressure the government to stop the war in Iraq, shift funding to rebuild communities, and go green with new jobs in a clean energy economy. On November 3, Step It Up 2007 is organizing coast to coast actions to demand leadership on global warming... Glick endorses all these actions and more. 'When you have everything from letter writing to riskier actions that push the envelope, you have a powerful movement that can't be ignored'."

The truth about the climate crisis is an inconvenient one that means we are going to have to change the way we live our lives. Al Gore

. . . unless we advance beyond thinking only in terms of conservation and alternate sources and begin to think in terms of a carbon pie, we will have no chance to stop the rise in atmospheric CO2. Wallace S. Broecker

Mayday Message: Save the Earth from Man Induced Climate Change!‏From: RobertMcA1@aol.comSent:Thu 9/27/07 11:24 AMTo: jbennet@uark.edu; aubreyshepherd@hotmail.comProtesters Pushing the Envelope. By Kelpie Wilson, Truthout.org, September 26, 2007. "More than 80 heads of state met at the UN on Monday to discuss the launch of post-Kyoto climate negotiations. Although this was the most high-level UN meeting yet held on the global climate emergency, President Bush refused to attend. He did, however, assent to an invitation from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to attend a private dinner afterward... Ironically, who eats and who does not eat is very much what the climate crisis is about. Scientists with the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predict global warming is likely to cut African crop production by half in the next dozen years... On Tuesday, film stars and celebrities from Bollywood and Nollywood (the Nigerian film industry) rallied near the UN with a Mayday Message on behalf of Africans and Asians. They said: 'Please help save us from climate change. We are the ones who have done the least to cause it, but we are suffering from climate change now. If you don't come to our help today, tomorrow it will be all of you'. Bollywood actress Shabana Azmi said, 'There are 854 million hungry people in the world today - 54 million more than when the world leaders pledged to halve hunger 11 years ago.' As global warming saps food production in poor countries around the world, the Millennium Development Goals of halving hunger by 2015 recedes into impossibility. While Bush was eating his dinner with Ban ki-Moon, a half-dozen American climate change activists continued a weeks-long fast to protest American inaction on climate, 'so that others might eat.' The fast began with participation from more than 1,200 people on September 4, the day Congress came back in session... [Climate activists],Ted Glick and others, are doing their best to organize the grassroots revolution. On Thursday, Glick will join a non-violent civil blockade of the second climate meeting this week, President Bush's...'Major Emitters Meeting'... where Bush will try to steer the world away from any mandates or caps on emissions and substitute vague 'aspirations' (voluntary action for legal obligations)... In addition to the civil resistance planned on Thursday, the Climate Emergency Council is holding a rally protesting Bush's 'Major Emitters Meeting' at noon on Friday, September 28 near the State Department building where the meeting is being held. On October 22, peace, justice and climate activists are sponsoring a 'No War No Warming intervention' in Washington to pressure the government to stop the war in Iraq, shift funding to rebuild communities, and go green with new jobs in a clean energy economy. On November 3, Step It Up 2007 is organizing coast to coast actions to demand leadership on global warming... Glick endorses all these actions and more. 'When you have everything from letter writing to riskier actions that push the envelope, you have a powerful movement that can't be ignored'."

The truth about the climate crisis is an inconvenient one that means we are going to have to change the way we live our lives. Al Gore

. . . unless we advance beyond thinking only in terms of conservation and alternate sources and begin to think in terms of a carbon pie, we will have no chance to stop the rise in atmospheric CO2. Wallace S. Broecker

NEW REACTORS IN SOUTH TEXAS WOULD SET U.S. ENERGY POLICY ON MISGUIDED COURSE

Today, NRG Energy said it is submitting an application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build two new reactors at its South Texas nuclear site. This is the first full application for a new reactor in the U.S. in more than 30 years.

This project is emblematic of the failures of U.S. energy policy to effectively meet the needs of our nation. Nuclear power is a 20th century technology in a new world of climate crisis and a future that demands a distributed, sustainable approach to energy. Nuclear power requires massive taxpayer subsidies and yet still cannot compete environmentally with the sustainable energy technologies that will power our future.

NRG Energy already has been quoted in the media (Washington Post, September 25, 2007) as saying that “the whole reason” the company is considering new nuclear reactors is taxpayer subsidies provided by Congress and the Bush Administration in the 2005 Energy Policy Act. These multi-billion dollar subsidies include taxpayer loan guarantees for new reactors, tax credits for the first six reactors built, the Price-Anderson Act limitation of utility liability for nuclear accidents, and “risk insurance” to cover possible delays in the licensing process.

Without taxpayer support, no utility would build a new atomic reactor, and no financial institution would invest in a new reactor.

Moreover, the NRG Energy application would repeat one of the fundamental mistakes of the first generation of nuclear power: the construction of nuclear reactors without a feasible facility or plan for storage of the lethal radioactive waste the reactor would produce. The Yucca Mountain, Nevada, radioactive waste dump is on its last legs, and appears increasingly unlikely to ever open. Even if it did, a new round of nuclear construction would necessitate construction of another radioactive waste dump as well—something no state in the country likely would accept. After 50 years, one would think the lesson would have been learned: building atomic reactors without a scientifically-sound waste plan is folly.

Texas is blessed with enormous potential for wind and solar power, while aggressive energy efficiency programs remain the cheapest, fastest and cleanest method of addressing both electricity demand and the need to quickly reduce carbon emissions. Construction of new reactors in Texas would divert the resources needed to implement those efficiency programs and help solar and wind reach their full potential—to the detriment of Texans and all Americans. A recent study from American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (summarized at http://www.nirs.org/alternatives/sestudy10.pdf) shows that Texas can meet all forecasted energy demand through energy efficiency and sustainable energy technologies.

Both Texas and the United States deserve better than a greedy utility feasting at the taxpayer trough to build another large polluting power plant. We expect Texans to oppose the NRG Energy project, and we expect to help Texans with their opposition.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

"As the world's leaders gather in New York to discuss climate change at the United Nations, one of the world's smaller countries is showing just how much can be done. New Zealand has long had a reputation for being 'clean and green' and has a proud record of conservation, with around 30% of its total land area being protected from development. Last week it announced bold plans [PDF 32 pages] to tackle climate change, following up on a goal set by prime minister Helen Clark at the start of the year for New Zealand to become the world's first carbon neutral country. Among the stated targets, to be legislated within the next year, is generating 90% of the country's electricity from renewable sources by 2025. This leaves California's goal of 80% by 2050 and Britain's goal of 60% by 2050 in the shade. (We should note that New Zealand is well ahead of the game, with close to 70% of its power already coming from renewables). What's more it expects its electricity sector to be entirely carbon neutral by 2025, followed by the stationary energy sector (coal and gas) in 2030 and the transport sector in 2040. It laid out a range of ways to achieve those targets, such a net increase in forest area of 250,000 hectares by 2020 and the wide use of electric cars. Government departments are leading the way; all 47 have emission-cutting plans and six - including treasury and the tax department, funnily enough - will be carbon neutral by 2012."

Protest Planned for Bush Climate Summit. Call to action, Climate Emergency Council, September 22, 2000. "In a clearly manipulative move, George Bush is inviting top leaders from around the world to Washington, D.C. on Sept. 27th and 28th to officially convey his 'deep concern' about global warming. His proposed fix: more useless 'voluntary' measures and huge subsidies for 'clean coal' and nuclear energy. The event is clearly meant to undermine real international efforts now underway to achieve mandatory greenhouse gas cuts under the Kyoto process. Here's what you can do: Join other concerned Americans in protesting this cynical conference on September 28th from noon-1:00 p.m. We'll be holding a rally downtown next to the State Department, probably on Virginia Avenue between C and D Streets, NW (permit applied for). For now, simply save the date and register for the rally so we can keep you updated in the coming days. Top ministers and heads of state from around the world will be attending Bush's conference as well as a great concentration of national and international media. We need to show up and loudly proclaim our own message: George Bush doesn't speak for us! We want real climate action now!"

The truth about the climate crisis is an inconvenient one that means we are going to have to change the way we live our lives. Al Gore

. . . unless we advance beyond thinking only in terms of conservation and alternate sources and begin to think in terms of a carbon pie, we will have no chance to stop the rise in atmospheric CO2. Wallace S. Broecker

Thursday, September 20, 2007

OMNI NEWSLETTER, SPECIAL NUMBER ON CHECKBOOK IMPERIALISM IN IRAQ
Building a Culture of Peace, SEPTEMBER 20, 2007

Compiled by Dick Bennett The last newsletter on these subjects appeared on July 3, 2007.

These writings are intended to assist in calling and writing letters to friends, to our Congressional delegates and other Cong. representatives, and to newspaper editors, to defend a government of, by, and for WE, THE PEOPLE.

CHECKBOOK IMPERIALISM http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20070918_checkbook_imperialism_the_blackwater_fiasco/
“Checkbook Imperialism: The Blackwater Fiasco”
By Robert Scheer Truthdig: September 18, 2007
Please, please, I tell myself, leave Orwell out of it.
Find some other, fresher way to explain why "Operation
Iraqi Freedom" is dependent upon killer mercenaries.
Or why the "democratically elected government" of "liberated power to expel Blackwater USA from its land or hold any
of the 50,000 private contractor troops that the U.S.
government has brought to Iraq accountable for their
; deadly actions.
Were there even the faintest trace of Iraqi
independence rising from the ashes of this failed
> American imperialist venture, Blackwater would have to
> fold its tents and go, if only in the interest of
> keeping up appearances. After all, the Iraqi Interior
> Ministry claimed that the Blackwater thugs guarding a
> U.S. State Department convoy through the streets of
> Baghdad fired "randomly at citizens" in a crowded
> square on Sunday, killing 11 people and wounding 13
> others. So the Iraqi government has ordered Blackwater
> to leave the country after what a government spokesman
> called a "flagrant assault ... on Iraqi citizens."
>
> But who told those Iraqi officials that they have the
> power to control anything regarding the 182,000
> privately contracted personnel working for the U.S. in
> Iraq? Don't they know about Order 17, which former
> American proconsul Paul Bremer put in place to grant
> contractors, including his own Blackwater bodyguards,
> immunity from Iraqi prosecution? Nothing has changed
> since the supposed transfer of power from the Coalition
> Provisional Authority, which Bremer once headed, to the
> Iraqi government holed up in the Green Zone and guarded
> by Blackwater and other "private" soldiers.
>
> They are "private" in the same fictional sense that our
> uniformed military is a "volunteer" force, since both
> are lured by the dollars offered by the same paymaster,
> the U.S. government. Contractors earn substantially
> more, despite $20,000 to $150,000 signing bonuses and
> an all-time-high average annual cost of $100,000 per
> person for the uniformed military. All of this was
> designed by the neocon hawks in the Pentagon to pursue
> their dreams of empire while avoiding a conscripted
> army, which would have millions howling in the street
> by now in protest.
>
> Instead, we have checkbook imperialism. The U.S.
> government purchases whatever army it needs, which has
> led to the dependence upon private contract firms like
> Blackwater USA, with its $300-million-plus contract to
> protect U.S. State Department personnel in Iraq. That
> is why the latest Blackwater incident, which Prime
> Minister Nouri al-Maliki branded a "crime," is so
> difficult to deal with. Iraqis are clearly demanding
> to rid their country of Blackwater and other
> contractors, and on Tuesday the Iraqi government said
> it would be scrutinizing the status of all private
> security firms working in the country.
>
> But the White House hopes the outrage will once again
> blow over. As the Associated Press reported on Monday:
> "The U.S. clearly hoped the Iraqis would be satisfied
> with an investigation, a finding of responsibility and
> compensation to the victim's families-and not insist on
> expelling a company that the Americans cannot operate
> here without." Or, as Ambassador Ryan Crocker testified
> to the U.S. Senate last week: "There is simply no way
> at all that the State Department Bureau of Diplomatic
> Security could ever have enough full-time personnel to
> staff the security function in Iraq. There is no
> alternative except through contracts."
>
> Consider the irony of that last statement-that the U.S.
> experiment in building democracy in Iraq is dependent
> upon the same garrisons of foreign mercenaries that
> drove the founders of our own country to launch the
> American Revolution. As George Washington warned in
> his farewell address, once the American government
> enters into these "foreign entanglements," we lose the
> Republic, because public accountability is sacrificed
> to the necessities of war for empire.
>
> Despite the fact that Blackwater USA gets almost all of
> its revenue from the U.S. government-much of it in no-
> bid contracts aided, no doubt, by the lavish
> contributions to the Republican Party made by company
> founder Erik Prince and his billionaire parents-its
> operations remain largely beyond public scrutiny.
> Blackwater and others in this international security
> racket operate as independent states of their own,
> subject neither to the rules of Iraq nor the ones that
> the U.S. government applies to its own uniformed
> forces. "We are not simply a 'private security
> company,' " Blackwater boasts on its corporate website.
> "We are a professional military, law enforcement,
> security, peacekeeping, and stability operations firm.
> ... We have become the most responsive, cost-effective
> means of affecting the strategic balance in support of
> security and peace, and freedom and democracy
> everywhere."
>
> Yeah, so who elected you guys to run the world?

Of late, many of the nation’s literati have preoccupied themselves with a mendacious New York Times op-ed column by a couple of think tank hacks named Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack, the burden of which is that, by golly, the glorious Surge really is working. Of course, the whole thing was a put-up job, sold on the man-bites-dog pretence that the two authors were longtime critics of the Bush administration who had gone to Iraq and seen the light. Their performance is deftly skewered here.

But as edifying as it might be for us to wallow in the discrediting of Messrs. O’Hanlon and Pollack, the piece is rather unimportant in itself – merely one of a thousand bits of semi-official war propaganda, essentially backward-looking as it attempts to vindicate the disastrous decision to invade and occupy Iraq. Our eyes alighted upon a more fruitful field for analysis in the form of a column by two other think tank hacks, Ivo Daalder of the Brookings Institution (not coincidentally, the place of employment for Mr. O’Hanlon as well), and Robert Kagan of the catastrophically misnamed Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The piece is ominously titled "The Next Intervention." Just when we thought two cloddishly mismanaged wars at the same time in Iraq and Afghanistan might chill the American appetite for military intervention, the authors rush to assure us that the dreadful prospect of a few years of peace can be safely ruled out. Why? "Despite the problems and setbacks in Iraq and Afghanistan, America remains the world's dominant military power, spends half a trillion dollars a year on defense and faces no peer strong enough to deter it if it chooses to act." Might makes right apparently. Rather than fighting on behalf of some morally unimpeachable cause, the principal reason the authors advance for going to war is because we can do it. This is, in fact, the opposite of "peace through strength," and suggests that critics of Pentagon spending were right all along in their assertion that more spending equals more war.

Mindful of the idiotic way in which the Bush administration handled diplomacy in the run-up to their Mesopotamian Blitzkrieg, the authors concede that getting other countries to sign off on our wars is a good thing. For one thing, it sells war to the Better Sort of People in America (the ones who shop at Whole Foods, watch PBS, can find foreign countries on a map, and are likely to be reading one’s op-ed in the Washington Post): "It matters to Americans, who want to believe they are acting justly and are troubled if others accuse them of selfish, immoral or otherwise illegitimate behavior." Horrors, the mortification of being accused, as a right-thinking American, of such low-class behavior! As well to receive a nasty letter from one's homeowner's association berating one for not cutting the lawn. After all, if the Frogs are on board as well as the Brits, it makes the war more Atlanticist and gives everyone a dose of righteous nostalgia for the Euro-American solidarity of the cold war.

But the problem, as Messrs. Daalder and Kagan see it, is that damned United Nations. We aren’t ever likely again to be in a situation like 1950, when the Russians boycotted the Security Council, so there will always be a permanent member able and willing to veto a U.S. military intervention. We need to overcome this problem because, as the authors pompously remind us, "Toppling Saddam Hussein was a just act and therefore was inherently legitimate." That is no doubt a great comfort to the next of kin of the 600,000 or so "excess mortalities" that the British medical journal Lancet estimates have occurred pursuant to the U.S. invasion.

The solution? – a "Concert of the Democracies" to replace the United Nations. One can almost hear the director cuing the inspirational music, à la the "Why We Fight" series. Nowhere, of course, do the authors define what a democracy is. If it means majoritarianism via one-man-one-vote, then the U.S. Senate and the Electoral College would have difficulty passing muster. If it means the rule of law maintained by such bedrock principles as habeas corpus, there will be a lot of embarrassed coughing behind the hand in Washington’s think tanks.

Even on more practical grounds, one can find insuperable problems with this scheme. One could point to any number of indubitable democracies in Latin America that, from bitter experience, would hesitate a long time before giving a blank check to Washington to intervene wherever it liked. In all likelihood, the authors’ vision, were it ever realized, would amount to no more that the same "coalition of the willing" we have in Iraq, i.e., a smallish group of subservient and/or well-bribed countries. It has, in fact, always been the administration’s preference to act as the capo among a group of clients, rather than as one sovereign country dealing with others of the same status. The op-ed piece so neatly fits the administration’s line, in fact, that it might as well have been drafted in the White House basement.

Much has been written about the military industrial complex: its obscene cost overruns; the corrupt relations between the uniformed military, the contractors, and Congress; the wild threat inflation. Too little studied has been the role of ostensibly non-partisan think tanks as the semi-official propaganda arm of the complex, and as the transmission belt of propaganda themes between the government and the prestige press. While the activity of the American Enterprise Institute as a propaganda organ is widely known because of its tub-thumping for the Iraq war and its championing of Iranian spy Achmed Chalibi, the same charge applies, to a greater or lesser degree, to most of the "prestige" think tanks: Brookings, Carnegie, CSIS, the Hudson Institute, etc.

They are an integral part of the government’s two-track propaganda machine for selling war. For the downscale end of the market, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, or Michael Savage will do nicely. Their braying voices and crude arguments are finely calibrated to reach every low-status white male out in satellite dish country. The notion that it’s even theoretically a good idea to have world opinion on America’s side before it embarks on war would be derided as sissy stuff in such precincts. One recalls the eve of the Iraq war, when the visceral hatred of the French in the Murdoch gutter press actually exceeded the vituperation against Saddam Hussein.

But to convince the professionals, the academics, the people who show up at the various world affairs councils which dot the provinces, it is critically useful to have mediators like Messrs. Daalder and Kagan. The Better Sort roughly corresponds to the National Bourgeoisie in Wilhelmine Germany or the outer Nomenklatura in the Soviet Union. They may not send their kids to war in any appreciable numbers, but their support for war is crucial to any administration. The more tender-minded of the Better Sort, in particular, lust in a most alarming way for some sort of "humanitarian" intervention they could support. It is the task of the Daalders and Kagans to toss around terms like "genocide" to provide a humanitarian gloss to whichever invasion advocacy project they are promoting at the moment.1

Note as well, that in the division of propaganda labor between the roughneck demagogues and the think tank chin-scratchers, the propaganda themes to promote a given policy are disparate or even contradictory. The Limbaughs and the O'Reillys sell a frank brand of gutter patriotism emphasizing the joys of killing foreigners. If there is any policy reason that appeals to the target audience, it is likely to be something direct and tangible, like the acquisition of valuable resources such as oil. On the flip side, the fear used to motivate Limbaugh Nation is some comic book level bugaboo, such as the notion that an Islamic army will physically invade and conquer America.2

That sort of thing won't sell with the Better Sort. Ideally, we are fighting, after a vigorous and probing national debate, and much searching of souls, for a better world, to prevent genocide, to stop female circumcision, or for credibility with our allies. If there is an overriding fear that motivates the Better Sort, it is that old nemesis of the MacNeil-Lehrer set, "regional instability." While the lumpenproles seethe with apocalyptic visions of hand-to-hand combat with the minions of the Caliphate in downtown Paducah, the Better Sort's fantasies parse like a graduate seminar from hell. Mr. Daalder and Mr. Kagan are only too happy to feed the conceits of the class that nurtured them on behalf of the government that employs them at one remove.

The day before yesterday it was Vietnam; yesterday it was Kosovo; today it is Iraq. Tomorrow it could be Iran, or Belarus, or Venezuela, or any one of a dozen prospects. The duty of the think tank hacks is to make war seem not only inevitable, but respectable in the eyes of the Better Sort.

One rather doubts a bunch of fuzzy-minded do-gooders was able to finance the recent campaign to intervene in Darfur that included full-page advertisements in the prestige papers and 60-second spots on television; there must have been more substantial interests involved. Although the "invade Sudan" lobby has thus far failed in its aim, it must be admitted that the target country of Sudan was a poor prospect: with a head of government not one person in ten thousand could name, it lacked an identifiable Hitler; and with a technology base more suited to the stone age than the space age, the fearmongers and threat inflators could hardly suggest WMD without eliciting laughter. When President Clinton dispatched cruise missiles against a Khartoum aspirin factory, the operation was not wildly popular, even among normally bellicose Republicans. One suspects the latter regarded it as an unwelcome distraction from their relentless drive to impeach him. If so, it was a rare case of domestic concerns trumping national security issues.Lest the reader think we exaggerate here, internet columnist Glenn Greenwald has written about exactly how prevalent this fantasy is among the Right Wing.August 15, 2007

Even though we know militarism is a complex of related historical currents, we have to divide them in order to grasp them and then to reconnect. Underpinning militarism, nationalism, imperialism is patriotism, a powerful engine for the others. Patriotism itself is often a congeries of contradictions. Often it functions to excite, stir up national animosities, prepare for invasions, reinforce wars. But reinforcement also works by covering up. One of patriotism’s many concentration points is Memorial Day, or “Memorial Day Mush,” as Michael Massing refers to it in his article by that title in Columbia Journalism Rev. (July-Aug. 2007). Massing excoriates this year’s Memorial Day for the mainstream media evading the realities of a USA in the ”fifth year of a calamitous war that has divided the nation, chewed up the armed forces, turned America into an international pariah, caused the deaths of perhaps hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and been judge by some historians to be the most serious foreign-policy blunder in U.S. history.” Instead of telling these truths by giving the troops and their families the opportunity to speak honestly, CBS told about memory books for families of the fallen and interviewed a Marine who declared “morale is high,” ABC recounted care packages, both networks told the story of the puppy “Hero”that a soldier in Iraq had adopted, and so on. “Most mawkish of all was CNN.” ACTION: Lead a group to expose patriotism (discuss articles and books, show films, demonstrate, purchase ads, Short Takes and forums on CAT) for its destructive part in the nationalism-militarism-imperialism complex. Dick

MILITARY SPENDING, ARMS PROLIFERATION

Stockholm International Peace Research InstituteSIPRI Yearbook 2007: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security. The Yearbook is SIPRI's annual compendium of data and analysis of developments in security and conflicts, military spending and armaments and non-proliferation, arms control and disarmament. For more on the book and ordering details, visit the Yearbook 2007 site. http://www.sipri.org/

They don't call us the sole superpower for nothing. Paul Wolfowitz might be looking for a new job right now, but the term he used to describe the pervasiveness of U.S. might back when he was a mere deputy secretary of defense -- hyperpower -- still fits the bill.

Face it, the United States is a proud nation of firsts. Among them:

First in Oil Consumption: The United States burns up 20.7 million barrels per day, the equivalent of the oil consumption of China, Japan, Germany, Russia, and India combined.

First in Carbon Dioxide Emissions: Each year, world polluters pump 24,126,416,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the environment. The United States and its territories are responsible for 5.8 billion metric tons of this, more than China (3.3 billion), Russia (1.4 billion) and India (1.2 billion) combined.

First in External Debt: The United States owes $10.040 trillion, nearly a quarter of the global debt total of $44 trillion.

First in Military Expenditures: The White House has requested $481 billion for the Department of Defense for 2008, but this huge figure does not come close to representing total U.S. military expenditures projected for the coming year. To get a sense of the resources allocated to the military, the costs of the global war on terrorism, of the building, refurbishing, or maintaining of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, and other expenses also need to be factored in. Military analyst Winslow Wheeler did the math recently: "Add $142 billion to cover the anticipated costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; add $17 billion requested for nuclear weapons costs in the Department of Energy; add another $5 billion for miscellaneous defense costs in other agencies…. and you get a grand total of $647 billion for 2008."

Taking another approach to the use of U.S. resources, Columbia University economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard Business School lecturer Linda Bilmes added to known costs of the war in Iraq invisible costs like its impact on global oil prices as well as the long-term cost of health care for wounded veterans and came up with a price tag of between 1 trillion and $2.2 trillion. If we turned what the United States will spend on the military in 2008 into small bills, we could give each one of the world's more than 1 billion teenagers and young adults an Xbox 360 with wireless controller (power supply in remote rural areas not included) and two video games to play: maybe Gears of War and Command and Conquer would be appropriate. But if we're committed to fighting obesity, maybe Dance Dance Revolution would be a better bet. The United States alone spends what the rest of the world combined devotes to military expenditures.

First in Weapons Sales: Since 2001, U.S. global military sales have normally totaled between $10 and $13 billion. That's a lot of weapons, but in fiscal year 2006, the Pentagon broke its own recent record, inking arms sales agreements worth $21 billion. It almost goes without saying that this is significantly more than any other nation in the world.

In this gold-medal tally of firsts, there can be no question that things that go bang in the night are our proudest products. No one makes more of them or sells them more effectively than we do. When it comes to the sorts of firsts that once went with a classic civilian manufacturing base, however, gold medals are in short supply. To take an example:

Not First in Automobiles: Once, Chrysler, General Motors, and Ford ruled the domestic and global roost, setting the standard for the automotive industry. Not any more. In 2006, the U.S. imported almost $150 billion more in vehicles and auto parts than it sent abroad. Automotive analyst Joe Barker told the Boston Globe, "it's a very tough environment" for the so-called Detroit Three. "In times of softening demand, consumers typically will look to brands that they trust and rely on. Consumers trust and rely on Japanese brands."

Not Even First in Bulk Goods: The Department of Commerce recently announced total March exports of $126.2 billion and total imports of $190.1 billion, resulting in a goods and services deficit of $63.9 billion. This is a $6 billion increase over February.

But why be gloomy? Stick with arms sales and it's dawn in America every day of the year. Sometimes, the weapons industry pretends that it's like any other trade -- especially when it's pushing our congressional representatives (as it always does) for fewer restrictions and regulations. But don't be fooled. Arms aren't automobiles or refrigerators. They're sui generis; they are the way the USA can always be number one -- and everyone wants them. The odds that, in your lifetime, there will ever be a $128 billion trade deficit in weapons are essentially nil.

Arms are our real gold-medal event.

First in Sales of Surface-to-Air Missiles: Between 2001 and 2005, the United States delivered 2,099 surface-to-air missiles to nations in the developing world, 20% more than Russia, the next largest supplier.

First in Sales of Military Ships: During that same period, the U.S. sent 10 "major surface combatants" like aircraft carriers and destroyers to developing nations. Collectively, the four major European weapons producers shipped thirteen. (And we were first in the anti-ship missiles that go along with such ships, with nearly double (338) the exports of the next largest supplier Russia (180).

First in Military Training: A thoughtful empire knows that it is not enough to send weapons; you have to teach people how to use them. The Pentagon plans on training the militaries of 138 nations in 2008 at a cost of nearly $90 million. No other nation comes close.

First in Private Military Personnel: According to bestselling author Jeremy Scahill, there are at least 126,000 private military personnel deployed alongside uniformed military personnel in Iraq alone. Of the more than sixty major companies that supply such personnel worldwide, more than 40 are U.S. based.

LOCKHEED MARTIN: WEAPONS FOR THE WORLD

Rest assured, governments around the world, often at each others' throats, will want U.S. weapons long after their people have turned up their noses at a range of once dominant American consumer goods. Just a few days ago, for instance, the "trade" publication Defense News reported that Turkey and the United States signed a $1.78 billion deal for Lockheed Martin's F-16 fighter planes. As it happens, these planes are already ubiquitous -- Israel flies them, so does the United Arab Emirates, Poland, South Korea, Venezuela, Oman and Portugal, not to speak of most other modern air forces. In many ways, F-16 is not just a high-tech fighter jet, it's also a symbol of U.S. backing and friendship. Buying our weaponry is one of the few ways you can actually join the American imperial project!

In order to remain number one in the competitive jet field, Lockheed Martin, for example, does far more than just sell airplanes. TAI -- Turkey's aerospace corporation -- will receive a boost with this sale, because Lockheed Martin is handing over responsibility for parts of production, assembly, and testing to Turkish workers. The Turkish Air Force already has 215 F-16 fighter planes and plans to buy 100 of Lockheed Martin's new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter as well, in a deal estimated at $10.7 billion over the next 15 years.

$10.7 billion on fighter planes for a country that ranks 94th on the United Nations' Human Development Index, below Lebanon, Colombia, and Grenada, and far below all the European nations that Ankara is courting as it seeks to join the European Union -- now that's a real American sales job for you!

MEDIA IRRESPONSIBLE SILENCE

Here's the strange thing, though: This genuine, gold-medal manufacturing-and-sales job on weapons simply never gets the attention it deserves. As a result, most Americans have no idea how proud they should be of our weapons manufacturers and the Pentagon -- essentially our global sales force -- that makes sure our weapons travel the planet and regularly demonstrates their value in small wars from Latin America to Central Asia.

Of course, there's tons of data on the weapons trade, but who knows about any of it? I'm typical here. I help produce one of a dozen or so sober annual (or semi-annual) reports quantifying the business of war-making. In my case: the Arms Trade Resource Center report, U.S. Weapons at War: Fueling Conflict or Promoting Freedom? These reports get desultory, obligatory press attention -- but only once in a blue moon do they get the sort of full-court-press treatment that befits our number one product line.

Dense collections of facts, percentages, and comparisons don't seem to fit particularly well into the usual patchwork of front-page stories. And yet the mainstream press is a glory ride, compared to the TV News, which hardly acknowledges most of the time that the weapons business even exists.

In any case, that inside-the-fold, fact-heavy, wonky news story on the arms trade, however useful, can't possibly convey the gold-medal feel of a business that has always preferred the shadows to the sun. No reader checking out such a piece is going to feel much -- except maybe overwhelmed by facts. The connection between the factory that makes a weapons system and the community where that weapon "does its duty" is invariably missing-in-action, as are the relationships among the companies making the weapons and the generals (on-duty and retired) and politicians making the deals, or raking in their own cut of the profits for themselves and/or their constituencies. In other words, our most successful (and most deadly) export remains our most invisible one.

ARMS BUSINESS/DRUG BUSINESS

Maybe the only way to break through this paralysis of analysis would be to stop talking about weapons exports as a trade at all. Maybe we shouldn't be using economic language to describe it. Yes, the weapons industry has associations, lobby groups, and trade shows. They have the same tri-fold exhibits, scale models, and picked-over buffets as any other industry; still, maybe we have to stop thinking about the export of fighter planes and precision-guided missiles as if they were so many widgets and start thinking about them in another language entirely -- the language of drugs.

After all, what does a drug dealer do? He creates a need and then fills it. He encourages an appetite or (even more lucratively) an addiction and then feeds it.

Arms dealers do the same thing. They suggest to foreign officials that their military just might need a slight upgrade. After all, they'll point out, haven't you noticed that your neighbor just upgraded in jets, submarines, and tanks? And didn't you guys fight a war a few years back? Doesn't that make you feel insecure? And why feel insecure for another moment when, for just a few billion bucks, we'll get you suited up with the latest model military… even better than what we sold them -- or you the last time around.

Why does Turkey, which already has 215 fighter planes, need 100 extras in an even higher-tech version? It doesn't… but Lockheed Martin, working the Pentagon, made them think they did.

We don't need stronger arms control laws, we need a global sobriety coach -- and some kind of 12-step program for the dealer-nation as well.

Frida Berrigan is a Senior Research Associate at the World Policy Institute's Arms Trade Resource Center.

From the Hill: Senate Panel Bans Cluster ExportsA key Senate committee has approved legislation that would effectively ban the U.S. from exporting cluster bombs, a weapon with a particularly deadly record of killing and maiming civilians, both during and after their inItial use. The legislation must still be approved by the full Senate and reconciled with a House version. You can help by ensuring that your senators and representative are cosponsors of the Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act of 2007. Read more.

LINCOLN AND PRYOR ARE NOT COSPONSORS

Subject: Cluster Bombs in the Spotlight: Write Your Local Media

Legislative Action Message

Cluster Bombs in the Spotlight: Write Your Local Media

August 8, 2007

Take ActionWrite your local media outlet. Call the attention of your community and your senators to the cluster bomb issue.

Well done! You and others in the FCNL network have sent over 50,000 messages to Congress supporting legislation to ban the use of cluster bombs in or near civilian populated areas. Due in part to this lobbying, last month a U.S. cluster bomb ban moved one step closer to reality when a key Senate committee voted to effectively ban the export of these weapons.

Now we need to build on this success. With your help, we can persuade the full Senate to support legislation that would restrict the use of these horrendous weapons, which are designed to kill all living creatures within a specific area that is often as large as several football fields.

Take Action

You can influence your senators and others in your community by writing a letter to the editor of one of your local newspapers. Congressional staff tell FCNL that most senators read every letter to the editor in the local papers in their state -- especially if the letter mentions her or his name.

Use FCNL's website to find out if your senators have cosponsored this legislation. Then you can use the website to find contact information for your local newspapers. Pick one local newspaper or other publication and send a letter today. We also provide a sample letter, but the most effective letters are the ones that you personalize to say something about yourself and your perspective on this issue.

Background

Find out more about cluster bombs Find out if your senators have cosponsored the legislation banning the use of cluster bombs in or near civilian populated areas Find more tips for writing a letter to the editor

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Fayetteville office: 251-1380. Lincoln’s staff is better informed than Boozman’s (see below), but obviously (her vote to join Bush in appropriating $95 billion more to keep the occupation going and her vote to further extend warrantless phone taps)) they need a lot of education. Call her and her staff.

--Congressman John Boozman, District 3, 12 counties from Benton to Washington

Lowell office: 479-725-0400. 213 W. Monroe, Suite K, 72745. Boozman's new office in Lowell is located at 213 West Monroe in Lowell between I 540 and Business 71. Go there, talk to Boozman’s staff members. They need your explanation of reality and values. To reach that office take Exit 78 off I - 540 and go east on Hwy 264 which is also West Monroe. The office is in the Puppy Creek Plaza, past the McDonald's on the right. His suite is in the back of the complex to the left. Or write or call. Ms. McClure is Assistant Chief of Staff for the Lowell office, Ms. Breazeal focuses on gangs, and Ms. Stacy Davis is constituent staff member.

OMNI SEEKS A WORLD FREE OF WAR AND THE THREAT OF WAR, A SOCIETY WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL, A COMMUNITY WHERE EVERY PERSON’S POTENTIAL MAY BE FULFILLED, AN EARTH RESTORED. GRASSROOTS NONVIOLENCE, WORLD PEACE, HUMAN RIGHTS, SOCIAL and ECONOMIC JUSTICE, ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP PROTECTING SPECIES AND THE EARTH.

Friday, September 7, 2007

Robert McAfee (left) of Hackett, chairman of the climate change committee of the OMNI Center for Peace, Justice and Ecology, was appointed to the Arkansas Governor's Commission on Global Warming. He is shown chairing a meeting of the OMNI committee on global warming on August 30, 2007, at the Senior Activity Center library in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

LITTLE ROCK — Gov. Mike Beebe on Friday announced 17 appointments to the newly created Governor's Commission on Global Warming.

Two members, Robert McAfee and Art Hobson, are also members of OMNI's Committee on Climate Change and Global Warming.

The commission, created under Act 696 of 2007, consists of 21 members, 17 appointed by the governor and two each by the House speaker and Senate president pro tem. The law requires the commission to study global warming and recommend ways to address the problem.

The goals set by law for the commission include Reviewing scientific literature on global warming and the actions already taken by the federal government, evaluating levels of emission of greenhouse gas in Arkansas and whether reducing that would affect global warming, producing a “comprehensive strategic plan” to “place Arkansas in a position to help stabilize the global climate, to allow Arkansas to lead the nation in attracting clean and renewable energy industries to our state, and to reduce consumer energy dependence on current carbon-generating technologies and expenditures.” A report to the governor is to be by November 1, 2008.

"Global warming is a growing concern that requires study and action on both state and federal levels," Beebe said in a statement issued by his office. "This commission will give Arkansans our own perspective on the scope and potential impact of this phenomenon and recommend the best steps to take to protect ourselves, our environment and our economy for the future."

Beebe's appointees to the commission include Aubra Anthony of El Dorado, president and CEO of Anthony Forest Products; Nick Brown of Little Rock, a partner in Working Forest Group; state Rep. Joan Cash, D-Jonesboro, owner of Lawrence County Tractor; Steve Cousins of El Dorado, vice president of refining for Lion Oil, who will represent the Arkansas Chamber of Commerce on the commission; Jerry Farris of Jonesboro, professor of environmental biology at Arkansas State University; and Rob Fisher of Little Rock, executive director of the Ecological Conservation Organization.

The governor also appointed Richard Ford of Little Rock, professor of economics at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock; Miles Goggans of Little Rock, a lobbyist for the agriculture and timber industries; Art Hobson of Fayetteville, professor emeritus of physics at the University of Arkansas; Kevan Inboden of Jonesboro, special projects administrator for Jonesboro City, Water & Light; Christopher Ladner of Little Rock, chairman of the Arkansas chapter of U.S. Green Building Council; and Robert McAffee of Hackett, a climatologist and executive director of The Peaceable Kingdom and Thinking Like a Mountain Institute.

The governor's other appointees are Elizabeth Martin of Fayetteville, research specialist for the University of Arkansas, who will represent the AFL-CIO; Pearlie Reed of Little Rock, legislative liaison for the National Association of Research, Conservation and Development Councils; Cindy Sagers of Fayetteville, associate professor of biological sciences at the University of Arkansas; Jeffrey Short of Malvern, who will represent the Arkansas Audubon Society; and Gary Voigt of Paron, president and CEO of Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corp.

House Speaker Benny Petrus, D-Stuttgart, previously appointed state Rep. Kathy Webb, D-Little Rock, the lead sponsor of Act 696, and Bill Reed of Stuttgart, vice president of corporate communication and public affairs for Riceland Foods.

Senate President Pro Tem Jack Critcher previously appointed former state Sen. Kevin Smith of Helena and Joe Stratman of Blytheville, vice president and general manager of Nucor-Yamato Steel.

The act does not specify when or how often the commission will meet. Webb has said she hopes the commission will begin meeting this month.

Appointee Art Hobson said he was excited to be part of the commission and pleased with Beebe's choices.

"I'm really happy that the governor has appointed several scientists to this commission. To me, one of the most important things all along was that science be well represented," he said.

"With this commission, with the broad-based support it has, we really could be a leader (on the issue of global warming) in the next couple of years," appointee Robert McAffee said.

Bill Kopsky, executive director of the Arkansas Public Policy Panel, said the commission will benefit from being well-rounded, including among its members not only scientists and environmentalists but also representatives of industry.

"The business community is going to have to be a partner in solving this. It's a global problem," he said.

"I think we're going to achieve some really important, good solutions that the governor can take to the Legislature and get passed in 2009," said Glen Hooks, spokesman for the Sierra Club of Arkansas.

Don Richardson, director of the Arkansas Climate Awareness Project, said the state cannot afford to wait to take action on global warming.

"This is a great step forward in us not doing business as usual," he said.

The OMNI Center for Peace, Justice and Ecology provides a volunteer-staffed table on the Fayetteville square each Saturday during the Farmer's Market season. People sign petitions on an array of popular issues, but impeachment has drawn much of the attention during the summer of 2007.Please click on photo to enlarge.

THE MOVEMENT to IMPEACH President Bush originated in response to theconstitutional articles and federal laws he has broken. Dave Lindorff and Barbara Olshansky's book, The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office (St. Martin's, 2006) sets forth six articles of impeachment .

Here is their summary: “On the merits, the articles of impeachment detailed in this book should be an open-and-shut case (we have deliberately limited ourselves to those issues where the crimes are clear and almost self-evident). The evidence of George W. Bush’s constitutional transgressions, violations of federal and international law, abuse of power, and criminal negligence as chief executive — all laid out in this volume — are so blatant one might think conviction would be a foregone conclusion.”

For similar reasons, the Center for Constitutional Rights gives four articles of impeachment in Articles of Impeachment against George W. Bush (Melville House, 2006). Again based upon the president violating the Constitution and breaking federal laws, Dennis Loo and Peter Phillips, editors of Impeach the President: The Case Ag ai nst Bush and Cheney (Seven Stories, 2006) summarize “12 Reasons Why George W. Bush and Richard Cheney Must Be Impeached” from the sixteen chapters in the book.

The most recent book on the Bush Administration’s offenses against Constitution and law is Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law by Marjorie Cohn. Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and president of the National Lawyers Guild.

OMNI NEWSLETTER, FIRST SPECIAL NUMBER ON CIVILIAN VICTIMS OF US TROOPS IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN (and Pakistan) SEPTEMBER 6, 2007, Compiled by Dick Bennett

WE, THE PEOPLE must create the government we desire. The materials in this Newsletter are provided to assist in strengthening your pressure on the people who caused these wars or allowed them to happen by their silence. Write and call Lincoln, Pryor, Boozman (see at end); your minister, priest, rabbi; your governor, mayor, councilperson: tell them you do not want psychopathic leaders who bomb and kill for oil and domination.

Killing civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan is a part of the larger subjects of the history of air war, of U.S. atrocities against civilians, and of U.S. War Crimes (in addition to killing civilians--torture, weapons of mass destruction: Agent Orange, DU, etc.).

Compared to books, many magazines (The Nation, Z Magazine, Harper’s, and so on), and many online sites and blogs, our newspapers offer little criticism of US militarism, imperialism, and state violence. Most mainstream media, especially tv, drum for the US wars. But if you read your newspaper carefully every day and keep some notes or clips, you can acquire some truth. The following is a minute sample of the killings.

On April 26, 1937 (will one of you lead OMNI to remember that Day each year?!) German and Italian bombers liquidated the ancient Basque town of Guernica. But earlier the British bombed Indian tribesmen from 1915 on; South African, French, and Spanish planes bombed civilians in the 1920s; and with increasing devastation. Patterson traces the history of and cultural response to the spread of airborne military assaults on civilians. Indiscriminate death from the air became a major subject of paintings, films, novels, poems, plays.

Joerg, Friedrich, The Fire: The Bombing of Germany 1940-1945 (Columbia UP, 2007). Surveys the eradication of populations—mainly women, children, and elderly men--and cultural heritage, comparing centuries of genealogy and building to a few minutes of bombing, statistics from body counts to acres of destroyed windows and yards of rubble per resident. The book will make you question the reasoning that sanctioned such slaughter. During WWII US leaders and people came to accept the killing civilians from the air which continues in the callously denying US of today.

TMN (9-4-07, 3B), Ryan Lenz (AP) “Documents Show Pattern of Disregard by U.S. Soldiers for Rules of War.” …crimes committed by U.S. soldiers against civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan” reveal “a troubling pattern of troops failing to understand and follow the rules that govern interrogations and deadly actions.” An ACLU report was based on “10,000 pages of courts-martial summaries, transcripts and military investigative reports about 22 incidents.” And these are only the tip of the iceberg. The killings of detainees in Samarra last year, and the killing of 24 civilians in Haditha were not included in the report. The ACLU attorney said “there’s an abundance of information being withheld from public scrutiny.” CONTACT LINCOLN, PRYOR, BOOZMAN AND URGE THEM TO INSIST ON THE FULL TRUTH.

2002- AFGHANISTAN

“U.S. Probe: Marines Killed Afghan Civilians.” (ADG Press Service info. gathered from TWP and Assoc. Press). ADG (4-15-07) 17A. “A preliminary U.S. military investigation indicates that more than 40 Afghans killed and wounded by Marines after a suicide bombing in a village near Jalalabad last month were civilians….”

Jason Straziuso. (AP). “U.S. Disputes Afghan Reports on Deaths.” ADG (7-8-07) 13A. “Afghan elders…claimed that 108 civilians were killed in a bombing campaign in western Afghanistan, while villagers in the northeast said 25 Afghans died in airstrikes, including some killed while burying dead relatives.” U.S. and NATO leaders denied substantiation, and a U.S. official “said Taliban fighters are forcing villagers to say civilians died in fighting.”

Peter Hart, “’Accidents’ Will Happen: Excusing Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan,” Extra! Update (August 2007), p. 3. “The civilian deaths are not accidents; they are the predictable result of a deliberate decision to protect American troops by putting Afghan noncombatants at risk.” A main cause is the choice of air power to avoid US soldier deaths, which inevitably leads to civilian deaths. The media covers up this policy and its consequences by suppression, excuses, and euphemisms.

Friends:This article on a bombing event in Afghanistan written by Marc Herold is painful but worth a close reading. For years Herold has been documenting the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan, and he has shown repeatedly that the Pentagon kills civilians on a large scale, often uses new barbaric weapons in areas where civilians are numerous, and regularly lies about it. They are using Afghanistan with especial ruthlessness and as a weapons experimental zone, because it is far away and out of media sight, so that they can get away with it. But the immorality involved here is staggering. If pictures like those shown here by Herold were available to the U.S. public this murderous policy would come to a screeching halt. But the media protect the Pentagon. This recalls to my mind the fact that the Pentagon only used napalm in South Vietnam during the Vietnam war, not North Vietnam, although we were allegedly saving the south from aggression. The reason for this was that napalming the North would have led to global publicity of this ugly method of warfare—but in South Vietnam the US was an occupying power and had a puppet government, as in Afghanistan, and the media here kept quiet on this matter. —Ed Herman PS: Herold tells me that his work is published widely abroad, but not in the US.

Noor Khan (AP), “Airstrikes Reportedly Kill Taliban Brass.” ADG (8-4, 2007). After U.S.-led airstrikes, “local officials and doctors said dozens of wounded were brought to hospitals, one of them an 8-year-old boy,” in Helmand province.

Chris Hedges and Laila Al-Arian. “The Other War.” The Nation (July 30-Aug. 6, 2007), 11-31. 50 military vets speak on the record about attacks on Iraqi civilians. “The described a brutal side of the war rarely seen on television screens or chronicled in newspaper accounts.” The “described such acts as common and said they often go unreported—and almost always go unpunished.” Al-Arian was interviewed by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now 7-12.

“The Deadly Occupation.” The Nation (July 30-Aug. 6) p. 3. Denounces Congress for being “willfully blind to civilian casualties,” for failure of oversight and silence, calls for Congressional inquiry, and an end to the occupation.

2007

“Iraq,” ADG (3-10-07)12A. US soldiers killed a man and his two young daughters and wounded his son, according to the wife, Ikhlas Thulsiqar.

Thomas Watkins (AP). “Marine Corps Focus on Battlefield Ethics: Military Branch Under Fire for Civilian Deaths.” TMN (7-15-07) 5B. “…the Marine Corps is boosting training in values and battlefield ethics” at its 2 training centers for enlistees, to 38 hours, “up from 24.” (“The Army provides about 24 hours of instruction on core values and ethics, the Air Force 7 ½ hours, and the Navy about 5 hours.”) The 2005 Haditha killings by Marines of 24 Iraqi civilians including women and children especially motivated the additional training. Three enlisted Marines are charged with murder and four officers are accused of failing to investigate the deaths. “A Pentagon survey of 447 Marines in Iraq last year found fewer than half said they would report a member of their unit for killing or wounding an innocent civilian. Only 38 percent said noncombatants should be treated with dignity and respect.”

JULY

“More Deaths.” (AP). TMN (7-11-07). A photo of Iraqis walking “with the coffin of a civilian killed in an early morning raid Tuesday by U.S. and Iraqi troops in the Shiite enclave of Sadr City in Baghdad.”

“Haditha Killings: Probe Recommends Court-Martial.” (AP). TMN (7-12-07). Investigating officer recommends that Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, commander of the battalion involved in the 2005 killings of 24 Iraqis in Haditha, should face a court martial for dereliction of duty. This is the “biggest U.S. criminal case involving civilian deaths to come of the Iraq war.”

Lee Keith. (AP). “Troops Conduct Raid in Shiite District: Angry Residents Accuse U.S. of Killing Civilians.” TMN (7-13, 2007) 4b. “…a battle that Iraqi officials said killed 19 people,” including 2 employees of the Reuters news agency. U.S. helicopters were “striking buildings during the fight and killing civilians” in the Amin district of Baghdad.

Thomas Watkins, “Marine Corps Focus on Battlefield Ethids: Military Branch Under Fire for Civilian Deaths.” TMN (7-15-07). Discusses the Haditha killings and Marine refusal to report murders. “A Pentagon survey of 447 Marines in Iraq last year found fewer than half said they would report a member of their unit for killing or wounding an innocent civilian. Only 38 percent said noncombatants should be treated with dignity and respect.”

Thomas Watkins. (AP). “Marine: Deaths a Reaction to Threat: Attorney Says Deadly Force Against Iraqis Proper Response.” ADG (7-17-07)5A. On the Haditha killings of civilians. One of the marines is accused of murdering two men, a woman, and a child, and “with assaulting another boy and girl who were injured in a grenade explosion.”

Allison Hoffman. “Marine, 25, Is Convicted in the Killing of Iraq Man.” ADG (7-19=07) 10A. Cpl Trent Thomas was convicted of kidnapping and conspiring to murder an Iraqi man in Hamdania, Hashim Ibrahim Awad, but acquitted of premeditated murder, making a false statement, and housebreaking. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. His lawyer claimed he was only following orders and of previously experiencing brain damage. Thomas is the first of 7 Marines and a Navy corpsman to go to trial in the killing, which squad member tried to cover up. [This is a terrible story; try to read it some day.]

ADG (I missed the date), Thomas Watkins (AP), “Marine Details Day Squad Killed Iraqi.” Cpl. Marshall Magincalda and 7 of his comrades set out to murder Saled Gowad, the Iraqi they thought responsible for attacks, but they murdered another man, Hashim Ibrahim Awad, unrelated and unsuspected, father of 11. Magincalda was acquitted of murder but convicted of conspiracy to commit murder, larceny, and housebreaking, and sentenced to time already served, and reduced in rank to private.

Ryan Lenz, “Trial Opens in Girl’s Death; GI Enters Some Guilty Pleas.” ADG (7-31-07) 2A. Pfc. Jesse Spielman. The trial of several soldiers for rape and murder of Abeer Qassim al-Janbi and murder of her family. See 8-5 entry.

AUGUST 2007 (in order of date of published report about past killings)

Ryan Lenz (AP), “Soldier Sentenced in Iraqis’ Deaths.” ADG (8-5-07) 11A. Pfc. Jesse Spielman was sentenced to 110 years in prison for “rape, conspiracy to commit rape, housebreaking with intent to rape and four counts of felony murder.” “He was charged in the March 12, 2006, rape and slaying of Abeer Qassim al-Janabi and the killings of her family” in Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad. Other soldiers involved—Barker, Cortez, and Howard-- have receive sentences of 5 to 100 years. Steven Green “faces a possible death sentence.”

TMN, August 25, 2007, Robert Reid, “U.S. Troops Battle Gunmen.” “U.S. helicopters blasted rooftops” in the Baghdad Shiite Mahdi Army neighborhood of Shula. The U.S. military said all the dead were “hostile,” but “Iraqi police and hospital officials said the dead included a woman and a young boy. Sixteen other people were wounded, including four women and three boys in their early teens who had been sleeping on the roofs to escape the heat.” The Sadr leader in Najaf claimef 21 civilians were killed.

TMN, Carol Williams (L.A. Times). “Iraqi Government in Crisis” (TMN 8-26-07). “…a U.S. missile landed in [Kirkuk], killing two people and injuring four….Kirkuk police said the dead were civilians but that the attack had targeted insurgents.”

SEPTEMBER 2007

“U.S., Iraqi Deaths High in August.” TMN (9-2-07). “Civilian deaths rose in August to their second-highest monthly level this year…compiled by Associated Press.”

“Officers Disciplined in Civilian Slayings,” TMN (9-6-07). On Haditha. “A major general and two senior officers have been disciplined for their roles…in the deaths of 24 Iraqi civilians in the town of Haditha in 2005.” Major Gen. Richard Huck and Cols. Davis and Sokoloski received letters of censure regarding their failures to respond correctly.

PAKISTAN September 1, 2007

Death at a Distance: The US Air War by Conn Hallinan

Foreign Policy in FocusAccording to the residents of Datta Khel, a town in Pakistan's North Waziristan, three missiles streaked out of Afghanistan's Pakitka Province and slammed into a madrassa, or Islamic school, this past June. When the smoke cleared, the Asia Times reported, 30 people were dead.

The killers were robots, General Atomics MQ-1 Predators. The AGM-114 Hellfire missiles they used in the attack were directed from a base deep in the southern Nevada desert.

It was not the first time Predators had struck. The previous year a CIA Predator took a shot at al-Qaeda's number two man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, but missed. The missile, however, killed 18 people. According to the Asia Times piece, at least one other suspected al-Qaeda member was assassinated by a Predator in Pakistan's northern frontier area, and in 2002 a Predator killed six "suspected al-Qaeda" members in Yemen.

These assaults are part of what may be the best kept secret of the Iraq-Afghanistan conflicts: an enormous intensification of US bombardments in these and other countries in the region, the increasing number of civilian casualties such a strategy entails, and the growing role of pilotless killers in the conflict.

According to Associated Press, there has been a five-fold increase in the number of bombs dropped on Iraq during the first six months of 2007 over the same period in….

ANALYSIS OF REPORTING OF US TROOPS KILLING CIVILIANS. One thing stands out especially:

Names of the murdered civilians are seldom given. TMN once a week offers as its editorial, “How We See It: Casualties of War.” They see dimly, for they never name an Iraqi casualty. Only US soldiers deserve respect in death.

REJECTION OF ETHICAL RULES OF ENGAGEMENT

Elan Journo of the Ayn Rand Institute denounces the restraints on killing in the philosophy of “compassionate” war. The purpose of warriors in wars is to kill. “We must put an end to the barbarous sacrifice of American troops” caused by ethical considerations. NAT (7-8-07), “The Real Disgrace: Washington’s Battlefield ‘Ethics.’”